1. Innovation Commercialization
and Licensing in Entrepreneurial
Business Education
March 23, 2013
NCIIA 17th Annual Conference
Darian Unger
Associate Professor
Howard University School of
Business dwunger@howard.edu 202-
806-1656

2. But after presentations like “Can You Milk a Rhino?”
“Spreading the Fire,” and “Purple Dragon”….let’s try:

3. But after presentations like “Can You Milk a Rhino?”
“Spreading the Fire,” and “Purple Dragon”….let’s try:
Innovation Commercialization:
Unicorns in flames!

4. Innovation Commercialization
and Licensing in Entrepreneurial
Business Education
March 23, 2013
NCIIA 17th Annual Conference
Darian Unger
Associate Professor
Howard University School of
Business dwunger@howard.edu 202-
806-1656

5. Research Topic
• Purpose
• To test the utility of incorporating
university innovation commercialization
projects into graduate coursework
• Methodology
• Application of innovation lessons to
university-owned intellectual property
• Tracking commercialization results
• Feedback from inventors, professors, and
innovation-oriented MBA students

6. Research Topic
• Literature Review
• Tech transfer efforts enhanced by key
variables (Friedman and Silberman, 2003)
• Location, compensation, tech transfer
experience
• Cultural barriers between universities and
firms (Siegel, et. al., 2003)
• Industrial responsiveness to university
innovations (Breznitz, 2011)

7. Research Drivers
• Wealth of university inventions and
intellectual property
• Lack of a Technology Licensing Office
(TLO) or Technology Transfer Office (TTO)

8. Research Drivers
• Meanwhile, we’ve got classes of
students studying innovation and
entrepreneurship
• Seeking actual examples and case studies

9. Key Course Skills:
Commercializing Innovation
• Creating value through innovation
• Technology and market S-curves
• Delivering value through new product
design and development
• Appropriating value through
• Patents
• Standards and dominant design
• Time to market
• Licensing

10. Application
• Work applied with graduate students
from a mid-size (5,000-10,000 students)
university
• Students were in-person students
rather than EMBA students
• Students self-selected from a menu of
university-owned intellectual property
• Patents already applied for or granted

11. Results and discussion
• Each class resulted in multiple
commercialization plans
• Classes were not identical in size
• Groups of two students per invention

12. Results and discussion
• Each class resulted in multiple
commercialization plans
• Classes were not identical in size
• Groups of two students per invention

13. Results and discussion
Consider both
• Academic (student and pedagogical) outcomes
• Institutional (commercialization) outcomes
of student teamwork dedicated
performing tasks normally performed by
TTOs/TLOs

14. Results and discussion
• Student and pedagogical results
included assessments of
• Business planning
• Market surveys
• Prototyping
• Patent value assessments
• Practical project grade variance was
significantly greater than conceptual exam
variance, and served to better distinguish

15. Results and discussion
• Innovation commercialization results
• Student work had created value
• Reduced administrative workload
• Improved expected time to market in 40% of
cases, as evaluated by technology transfer
contract staff
• Some groups recommended patent exploitation
while others advocate time to market as more
important

16. Guarded Observations
• Future research will measure the
efficacy of the revised teaching methods
• Requires additional years and greater sample
sizes
• Still useful as a baseline
• Common metrics also occur on time scales
much longer than the courses themselves
• Number of patents
• Level of licensing revenue

17. Final thoughts
• Demonstrates that introduction of these
projects can spur a dual benefit:
• Educating students with practical examples
• Aiding the commercialization of
commercialization of university-associated IP
• Prospect of symbiosis between
innovation-oriented educational
programs and university technology
transfer and licensing efforts

18. Questions?